Before the night of Thursday the 5th, Network Rail bridge 246 DCL may have seemed unassuming and other than shrapnel scars it is very much as Brunel left it in the 1850’s…

But overnight a lot changed as the Jewellery Quarter community was left a Christmas card of sorts which went straight to the heart of a debate about a caring society, although Banksy, the artist, seems to have singled out Brum as a particularly caring place; well thank you sir!

We are assisting the Jewellery Quarter Development Trust in developing a strategy for what we do with this Banksy.  As conservation architects we find the intent of art work from any age a fascinating subject and make comparisons with our scheme for the protection and interpretation of the medieval art work at Charterhouse where itinerant European artists came to Coventry in the 1320’s to leave a message on a wall that spoke of their times and our Bristolian has nailed a very similar one here.

Banksy does not maybe see his street art as permanent whereas the medieval monks did, but it was their work which was soon to be defaced and covered over.  The arts are all we leave as our true legacy and each age stamps its own particular message down from the past but perhaps this Banksy as a video and as a statement is enough and if we cannot save it then OK; we all take our Christmas cards down sometime.